


My Chest is a Black Hole

by RogueWolf



Series: Avenging Drabbles and Oneshots [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Steve Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 02:14:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4901605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueWolf/pseuds/RogueWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers is Captain America, the leader of the Avengers, and the one person everyone looks up to. He is perfect, or so they think, because that's what he wants them to believe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Chest is a Black Hole

“Good job, Avengers.” Steve waited until the rest of the Avengers passed him, most heading to their quarters to drop off gear and sleep or, if they were Tony, going straight to his workshop to tinker on the suits for the next 24 hours.

Once he was sure everyone was inside, he shut the launch door and locked it, before walking to the elevator that would take him to his floor. He made sure that he looked confident, calm, and in control of himself. His teammates had an odd sense of what it meant to relax, and he didn’t need a repeat of last time, when Natasha had stepped out of what seemed like nowhere and scared the daylights out of him.

Jarvis had the elevator ready for him, and Steve thanked him absently, pushing the button for his floor and waiting for the doors to close before he slumped down, his head bowing forward, his hands loose at his side. He could feel himself beginning to shake, and he wrapped his arms around himself, holding tight, trying to contain himself. He knew the others wouldn’t find out about this, at least not through Jarvis. He and the AI had had a little talk when Steve moved in, and Jarvis understood that Steve needed privacy better than some of the humans he knew.

The elevator chimed softly. “Captain Rogers, we have arrived at your floor. Would you like me to open the doors?”

“Give me a few minutes, Jarvis,” Steve rasped. “I just…I need a few minutes.”

“Of course, Captain.”

Jarvis fell quiet and Steve focused on his breathing, on inhaling slowly through his nose and exhaling through his mouth. …….In…...Out…..In…..Out…

He felt the shakes recede, replaced instead by a weariness that Steve could usually ignore, could hide from by being Captain America, an Avenger, a helping hand. It was just hard to hide when he didn’t have to be any of that.

“Ok, Jarvis, open it up.”

The doors slid open and Steve stepped out into the long hallway leading to his suite of rooms. He had protested at first, it was far too much space for one person, but he had come to cherish the rooms and the silence they could offer.

Steve started tugging of his gear, letting the gloves and helmet fall to the floor – he could always pick them up later. Then he was in his room, his right boot already half off, his left stranded in the hallway. He shimmied out of the suit, thinking not for the first time that it was much easier to put it on than to take it off.

The suit landed in a pile on the floor and Steve padded towards his bed on bare feet, wearing only his boxers and the thin tank he could keep under the suit. He crawled onto the bed and wrapped himself up in the comforter, tucking his knees up as high as he could and curling his arms in until his cheek rested on his folded palms.

He was still for one breath, two…then he started shaking again, shakes that devolved into hoarse little gasps and choked whimpers that turned into sniffles and Steve blinking his eyes furiously. He kept blinking as tears started to trail down his cheeks, rolling silently to fall onto his arms.

He didn’t know how long he lay there, he just knew that his pillow was damp, his eyes burned, and that he couldn’t breathe through his nose. He reached for the tissue box on his bedside table but knocked it off. It felt to the floor with a faint thump and Steve let his arm fall as well, feeling useless.

It wasn’t a new feeling, he’d felt it before, during the war, or even back when he lived in Brooklyn. It lived in his chest like an old friend, like someone had taken a spoon and scraped out the space between his lungs and left it this gaping black space that could never be filled. That’s where it lived. Steve sometimes thought that it had always been like that; it's just harder to notice when he’s the Captain.

He curled in on himself tighter, breathing shallowly through his mouth, his nose still stuffed up. He felt cold, as though he had ice in that black space in his chest and he could never be warm again. He could feel it, sending out little pulses of cold, reaching out to his fingers and toes until he felt cold all over.

He just wished….he wished that he didn’t have to be the one in charge sometimes, or…no. He liked being in charge, he liked being in control of a situation. He just wished that it wasn’t an all or nothing situation, that he could have someone to help, someone like Buck-

He shied away from that thought, unwilling to risk the grief and blame that would follow at its heels. But it haunted him, made it all the more obvious that this team would fall apart if it weren’t for him. The Avengers might be a great team, but they were terribly unbalanced. It was a group of loners and self-sacrificers who didn’t know how to always work together. They were so used to being on their own and able to play by their own rules that without clear guidance, they splintered. They needed a leader, they needed him.

Which would have been fine, Steve was used to being the leader. He just wasn’t used to being the leader in a time that wasn’t his, in a world where his friends had grown old and died, where their grandchildren were now Steve’s age. And Steve might have had his List, but it seemed that as soon as he crossed one item off it three more took its place, people constantly telling him to watch this or listen to that or read something.

Steve might not have needed as much sleep as he used to, but there was only 24 hours in a day.

He shuffled to the edge of his bed and groped for the fallen tissue box. When he found it, he grabbed two tissues and blew his nose, relieved that he was finally able to breathe again. He tossed the tissues into the trashcan next to the table and then curled back up, pulling the blanket up till it covered everything but the top of his head.

He felt safer like this, the air under the blanket hot and moist, almost stifling, but it was dark and close as well, and it made him feel the smallest bit warmer. He sniffled once more and then closed his eyes, willing himself to fall into painless, dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Excuse me while I go sniffle into my own tissues, because I gave myself feels while writing this.


End file.
